Saturday, March 26, 2011

The latest victim of the ongoing crisis in Japan is the new minivan version of the Prius as Toyota announced today that it has decided to postpone launch of the car at its home market. “No decision has been made at this time on when the launch will be rescheduled,” Toyota said in a statement.

Despite the delay in Japan, Toyota said that the North American version of the Prius V, which is scheduled to launch at the end of summer 2011, remains on track. “No decision has been made in regards to a possible need to change the launch timing,” Toyota said.The world largest automaker unveiled the Prius V minivan with five-seats at this year’s edition of the Detroit motor show in January. It was followed by the European market Prius+ featuring three rows of seats for seven passengers at the Geneva Salon in early March. It is believed that Japan will (eventually) get both the five- and seven-seat versions of the Prius minivan. The disaster in northern Japan has created severe problems to Toyota as the company recently extended the vehicle-production halt that began on March 14 at all of its plants in the country through March 26.